


Möbius Strip

by John_Malfoy



Category: Fate/stay night - All Media Types
Genre: Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:55:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26542528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Malfoy/pseuds/John_Malfoy
Summary: The fifth Holy Grail War is over. Everyone can relax now, because the threat of the curse is no longer there. But how can Emiya Shirou pull away from this? After all, there is a war still going on in his soul.





	Möbius Strip

**Author's Note:**

> The Mobius strip has no beginning or end.  
> Events repeat themselves again and again.

**beta-reader:**

**Mein lieblings Spitz**

How did it all came to this?

How did it happen?

Fire. Flames, pain and despair. _**Black sun**_ , heat, curses. _**Black sun**_ , stench of people burning alive. _**Black sun**_ , burning coals settling on the burning earth. _**Black sun**_ , screams.

And the _**black sun**_.

It was hanging in the sky just like it was then and there was nowhere to go. Everywhere you look, even if you close your eyes for centuries, with your palms, tear it out, throw it away... it will be there. It will be there until the very end, until it all ends.

So how did it happen?

The wish made to the Holy Grail turned out to be a disaster for humanity. For centuries, the human race has been convinced that desires cannot be achieved without work, sweat and blood. But the lineage of mortals is stubborn and unreasonable when it comes to desires.

And so the disaster returned again.

Crystallized curse, taking on physical form, all evil, all the sins of mankind, poured into the streets of a small city, whose people did not deserve such a fate.

He thought so.

They thought so.

But it didn`t turn out that way.

Now he understood how his father felt as he walked along the same streets ten years ago.

Empty-eyed Emiya Shirou wandered through the burning city without knowing where he was going. He was looking for... survivors? A way out?... He didn`t know what he was looking for, he didn`t know where he was going or where to go.

He was just walking. Stepping over burned corpses, paying no attention to the screams of the dying, unable to hear them, unable to hear those who still survived, he was looking for something known only to him.

That no one else could find.

Or whom.

His whole body was burning with fire, but he couldn`t understand what it meant. The clothes, slowly but surely, smouldered, and exposed areas of his skin.

But none of this mattered.

It didn`t matter so much now.

It was like someone was calling him from all sides, there were exclamations, screams, moans, someone was calling him by his name, probably someone he knew, but none of it mattered.

"Traitor," a ghostly voice swept right in front of him, washing his face like a stream of wind. "You fooled me. I trusted you with my life, how dare you betray me?"

The young man raised an empty look forward, seeing in the middle of the flames a woman with wheat-colored hair, in a charred, noble, blue dress and in the fragments of her own silvery armor. Her right eye was bleeding and she covered it up, but the other fiercely and very, very tired looked at him. As if she didn`t even have the strength to do that.

"Answer me," Saber looked at him with a single yellow eye, shuddering. "Why did you kill me, Emiya?"

"I didn`t… I didn`t kill… I had to… I had to…"

"Stop frequenting!" She screamed. «Answer straight, like a Man, like a knight! Although what kind of knight you are. You have betrayed your king."

Before Shirou could blink, the fire was gone and he found himself on a battlefield where only two knights fought. And one of them, in heavy silver and scarlet armour, pierced the knight in silver and blue armour.

Shirou heard the triumphant laugh coming out of his lips. So disgusting that he wanted to shut his mouth for the same hour with anything to keep him out. In order not to hear it again.

And he turned away.

But came across again the charred corpses of people whom he once knew.

The bile tried again to find its way through his throat out, but the young man was only seized by the spasm. There was nothing left inside and the only thing that could get out of his stomach was blood.

There was no one around.

Emiya Shirou wandered through the destroyed land, where life will be very far away. drenched in curses and hatred of people for one person.

Of course there was no one there.

How could it be otherwise?

After all, Servant Saber has long been dead. He himself, personally killed her with his own hands.

So why did he see her? There were no answers. There were only more questions.

But the young man did not care about all this.

_Is this how Kiritsugu felt?_

After all, he also betrayed Saber. Just like his father.

An awkward and sad grin snaked at Emiya Shirou's lips.

_You are like your father._

"Our father, you say," Shirou said involuntarily.

Archer stood in front of him. In his disgusted Shirou red cloak and black armor, he haughtily looked down at the young man, despising him — his past and definitely not wanting to have anything to do with him.

"Speaking of traitors," he said. "Then you betrayed not only the Servant who entrusted you with her life, but also all the people of Fuyuki who are now dead due to your fault. Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

In his hands, a pair of Kansho and Bakuya swords, to which Shirou had already got used, slowly appeared. Archer threw himself at him, furiously carrying forward, swinging blades as if in his last attempt to kill Shiro. But the young man projected the exact same pair in response and put it in front of him.

A monstrous blow fell on his hands, shoulders, and in general his whole body. It was as if a multi-tonne wave was pressing him from above, with the intention of crushing him, breaking his back, grind his bones into powder, crushing his muscles, destroying his essence and soul.

Shirou never thought that anything in his life would press him like that. The spine seemed to crack and a groan escaped from the young man`s mouth, from dry and very hot lips. All bones in the body, all cartilage and the smallest particles were frayed. With every passing second, Shirou felt as if his body was disappearing from this world, and Archer`s eyes, which were gray, are turning yellow at first, and now ... Turquoise?

Before Shirou could even turn around, the landscape suddenly changed again. He was lying on a soft bed. His friend Tossaka Rin was sitting on the edge of this very bed and soothingly held her hand on his chest, gently stroking.

"You're so alike…" she muttered with tenderness and even love. "You and Archer."

The truth was not long in coming and Shirou took the sitting down with obvious difficulty, looking into deep turquoise eyes.

"Sorry, Rin. But I don`t think Archer and I are alike. This is not true."

Rin just smiled softly at him and kissed him at the corner of lips. And the spark that flashed near his face destroyed his entire world.

And the next moment, Shirou woke up in a red-hot hell.

He must have passed out briefly from the fight with Archer.

"Must go ... I must ... At least someone ... At least someone to find ... Survivors ... There must be survivors here ..."

It is not known how much more he went forward. How much he moved in the flame, how much he was burned and how much he was tired.

It didn`t matter at all. The main thing was to find survivors. At least one. Anyone.

And the heavens seemed to smile at him. He was ready to thank anyone for this miracle.

At the very edge of the fiery hell, there was a girl. Very small, the same as Shirou himself was then.

She stood with her last strength, as it might seem to anyone who looks at her and was about to collapse to the ground. But as soon as this happened, she was supported by a young man eager to find at least one of the survivors in this fiery hell.

A girl with black hair and extinct brown eyes would have fallen on hot rocks if Shirou hadn`t picked her up and never froze.

She opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry, but she saw a man in front of her ... no, just a young man, with unusual red hair and burning scarlet eyes.

There were tears in his eyes ... Was he crying? Why?

She wanted to think about it, but her mind did not allow her, and she relaxed back into his arms, unable to be conscious any longer.

But in this place the last survivor from the city, which was formerly called Fuyuki and the young man who had dreamed of becoming a defender of justice all his life did not die.

A girl with black hair, styled in two ponytails on the sides, rushed through the burning ruins as if all the demons of the underworld were chasing her.

She ran as fast as she could, trying to catch up. She must be in time. Being late is not acceptable, not conceivable, even the thought did not fit in her head about what would happen if she slowed down.

The lungs were burning. She has never experienced this before. All the magic lessons she had experienced in her entire life had been hit on her mark, on some parts of her body, on her head, but she had never experienced such heat in her life. It`s hotter than any hot spring. Hotter than any water. The sweat evaporated from her forehead before he could perform.

But she kept on running.

" **Gandr!"**

She periodically shot at the debris, removing them from her path, destroying them so that it was easier to run right through them. She didn`t even think about deactivating her mark.

She couldn`t afford it.

When she saw the falling beam ahead, she cast a few spells and accelerated to the limit, while at the same time rising her right hand to strike.

Oh, she will definitely regret it. But there was no time for Gundr.

Reaching her hand and throwing it forward, she destroyed the burning beam, hissing in the searing pain.

But that was nothing. Transplanting the circuits was more painful.

And then she froze. Right in front of her, at a distance of a couple of meters, her companion in misfortune Emiya Shirou stood in a kneeling pose, looking ahead with empty eyes.

In his arms he has held the child, clearly unconscious. But what could she say, Rin did not think that Emiya himself was conscious. She had never seen him like this before.

Though if you think about it ... In Archer`s memories ...

She shook her head, as if this way she could drive unnecessary thoughts out of her head.

"Emiya ... What an idiot!" She cried out, half angry, half desperate. "Why did you leave without telling me anything?! I ... I could ..."

But then he began to fall on his side, threatening to drop the child from his hands.

"Emiya? .. Shirou! Don`t you dare switch off! Do you hear me?!" she grabbed him, amazed at how heavy his body was, and also, despite the burned areas of the skin, cold and ... and ... somehow lifeless. "Don`t you dare ... Don`t you dare the damn hero! Shirou! .. SHIROU!"

* * *

"Professor El Melloi?"

The man turned and looked at the girl with a tired look.

"Ah, Tohsaka ..."

"He is…"

Rin stopped at a large window with a white-haired boy inside. He walked from one end of the room to the other, periodically stumbling, falling and rising again.

"Our father… you say…"

The man and the girl silently looked at the young man, who did not notice them. But he did not stay alone for a long time. Two blades immediately appeared in his hands, and he began to wave off something, and then assumed a pose as if someone was pressing on him from above. Blood flowed from his nose and a groan escaped his lips.

"Professor, do something! .."

"Calm down, Tohsaka. It will stop soon."

And as if El Melloi knew what was going to happen, the blades suddenly disappeared and Shirou turned right out the window, which was impenetrable to him.

"Sorry, Rin… But I don`t think… Archer and I… are alike… This is not true…"

Rin wiped away the angry tears in her eyes, turning away from Waver, making sure he didn`t see it.

I'll definitely get you in order, damn hero. You dare not leave Hiromi alone. Not after everything she went through.

"Professor, may I come in?"

"At your own risk, Tohsaka."

Rin could not resist the shiver that had gripped her hands since the fire, and went to the door and turned the handle. It would not open from the inside, nor from the outside. Only El Melloi could open this door. He and those he will allow.

Taking a deep breath, Tohsaka Rin, the heroine of the fifth Holy Grail War, entered a room that was an exact copy of one of the rooms in the Emiya residence. The town Fuyuki where she grew up was flattened out. Everything that could have burned down in it and everything else dissolved in curses. But Rin used her memory to restore what little she could in a house near London. In which now was Emiya Shirou, still, three years later, unable to recover.

Tohsaka found him lying near the epicenter of the fire and sheltering a little girl, whose name now was Emiya Hiromi.

Rin brought her up as best she could, gave her the few knowledge she could because it was impossible to send a girl to school in this condition. Except that it was as if the girl subconsciously knew who had saved her. The most important person in the world for her was not her harsh tutor, aunty Rin, but a young man whom hairs turned white early, in whose presence she always calmed down if she was sad.

And while she has holding his hand, he was calm and quiet, doing everything Rin said, as if he understood her perfectly.

"Will Shirou be okay?" there was a thin, barely audible voice heard behind. Rin couldn`t take her eyes off the young man.

"Over time, he will come to his senses. The main thing is to be with him," struck a lighter, then there was a sigh and the rustle of his expensive cloak. Waver put the cigarette back, not smoking in the child's presence.

 _Haven't you lit a cigarette? Wow…_ Rin thought.

"Everything will be fine," footsteps rang out, and Lord El Melloi II placed his hand on Tohsaka`s shoulder. "I should go."

Rin just nodded. Hiromi, quietly approaching, hesitantly took her aunt`s hand and looked into the room.

Inside, in a replica of his room in Fuyuki, Emiya Shirou sat in the corner of the room, completely white-haired, but with a calm face and a kind smile.

There was no recognition in his eyes.

"Hello Shirou ..."

_I'll save you, goddamn hero. What wouldn't it cost me._

"And we came to visit you again ..."

_I will._

"How are you doing? Hiromi-chan and I missed you ..."

_No matter what. I swear._


End file.
